cold

英文词源

cold

cold: [OE] Cold is a word of ancient roots. It can be traced back to the Indo-European base *gel-, *gol-, which also produced Latin gelu ‘frost’, ultimate source of English congeal, gel, and jelly. Its prehistoric Germanic descendant was *kal-, *kōl-, from which English gets cool, probably chill, and, via a past participial adjective *kaldaz, cold. The noun use of the adjective dates back to Old English times, but the sense ‘viral infection of the nose, throat, etc’ is a 16th- century development.
=> chill, congeal, cool, gel, jelly

cold (adj.)

Old English cald (Anglian), ceald (West Saxon) "cold, cool" (adj.), "coldness," from Proto-Germanic *kaldaz (cognates: Old Frisian and Old Saxon kald, Old High German and German kalt, Old Norse kaldr, Gothic kalds "cold"), possibly a past participle adjective of *kal-/*kol-, from PIE root *gel-/*gol- "cold" (cognates: Latin gelare "to freeze," gelu "frost," glacies "ice").

Meaning "not strong" (in reference to scent) is 1590s, from hunting. Cold front in weather is from 1921. Cold-call in the sales pitch sense first recorded 1972. Japanese has two words for "cold:" samui for coldness in the atmosphere or environment; tsumetai for things which are cold to touch, and also in the figurative sense, with reference to personalities, behaviors, etc.

cold (n.)

c. 1300, "coldness," from cold (adj.). Sense in common cold is 1530s, from symptoms resembling those of exposure to cold; compare earlier senses "indisposition caused by exposure to cold" (early 14c.); "discomfort caused by cold" (c. 1300).